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The Magician: Jimmy Calendar

Jimmy Calendar is a PC in my Persona tabletop game, played by my friend Jose. If any of my players are reading this, possibly some light spoilers ahead, but I’m going to try to keep this surface-level enough that you can read it all right.

This is the first of my character write-ups for my Persona-H campaign, based on the popular and fascinating Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. I’ll probably be jumping around with these, since the PCs have yet to meet every NPC of every Arcana in the game, and the PCs themselves–Jimmy, Wayne, Zach, and Uki–are of the I. Magician, VII. Chariot, XI. Strength, and XV. Devil Arcana respectively. We’re going to start with the lowest card first, and go from there.

I’ll be posting a page to provide links to all the write-ups as well. 🙂

The Magician: Jimmy Calendar Artist unknown (?)

The Magician

He’s not very academically inclined (read: he doesn’t study and is widely considered the class dunce), enthusiastic, eternally optimistic, and constantly joking, even if no one’s laughing. He has an eye for the ladies, though they typically ignore him or groan when he’s around, and he’s constantly bragging about his romantic skills though he’s never had a girlfriend or been on an actual date.

Seriously, it’s bad. Whenever a new female NPC shows up, he falls head over heels in love with her on sight. It is rare that Jimmy can turn down a suggestion or request from a female character, which Uki has used frequently to her advantage to put him in embarrassing situations. (She has the pics to prove it.)

Jimmy possesses that most Magician of qualities—self-confidence—and he has it in spades. Despite clear indications that he’s in over his head or that he’s messing something up, he still perseveres in his goals because “well, it’ll all work out.” Generally, he seems like a jokester bro type, but there’s interesting depth to his character. He demonstrates strong loyalty to his friends, and he’s always there to cheer everyone up with a joke or a smile. He keeps a cool head under pressure and has proven to be quite resourceful.

Like most Persona Magician characters, he frequently allows his enthusiasm and youthful energy to run away with him, and he isn’t always capable of reeling it back wen he goes too far. Which is often.

In Jungian/Tarot terminology, the Magician represents the animus, or the iconic male force of energy. And I think that works pretty well for Jimmy, who is a bubbling geyser of male energy.

He’s adopted, being raised by two somewhat eccentric Japanese émigrés who’ve settled in Seattle for work in the Aerospace industry. His dad, Tatsuya Suou, is an engineer who loves tinkering with motorcycles, while his mother, Maya, teaches Jazzercise, Zumba, and other such exercise classes. Jimmy retains very little of his life before being adopted as an infant: only his name. He’s never met his biological parents.

Awakening and Persona

Despite his immaturity and occasionally cringe-inducing antics, Jimmy possesses a strong urge to help people and protect those in danger. His Persona, Batman, first manifested in the metaverse of Darkest Seattle (a 1950s era gothic reimagining of Seattle, which resembled Gotham City more than anything else), wherein his newfound teammates were about to be gunned down by his arch-nemesis, Timothy Brothers as the Jester (a combination of the Joker, Kefka from FFVI, and Pennywise the Clown from It).

Why Batman? Because Batman is a figure of wit and resourcefulness, who is capable of going it alone but is always at his best when working with others. He represents complete and utter confidence in himself and his abilities, as well as the drive to get done what needs to get done by any means necessary. Also because he’s just so dang KEWL for a nerd like Jimmy.

Batman, art by David Finch

In Persona-H, everyone has a weapon that is also a gun. In combat, Jimmy uses kinetic gloves that are also shotguns. (Picture Yang’s weapon from RWBY.)

Shadow and Fear

In Persona-Heroic, the main challenge the characters must overcome is fear, which is slowly leaking into the world, threatening the downfall of civilization and an apocalyptic event. (Because this is Shin Megami Tensei, after all, and that’s how these things go.)

Jimmy’s fear is the fear of being alone. Of being ignored. Of being on the outside looking in. Of being forgotten. Though he’d prefer to be liked, he doesn’t mind people disliking him, so long as they have some opinion of him. Though he frequently claims to be “just fine” on his own, he’s also driven by an overwhelming urge to form connections with people. To have friends. Because ultimately he can’t go it entirely alone, and needs to be able to rely on others just as he needs to be relied upon.

Social Link

Every character in my games has a social link of their own, to reflect their particular Arcana. It associates with another character of the same Arcana who is involved in their lives in some way, and progressing the social link often involves acting in accordance with their Arcana.

In Jimmy’s case, the Magician social link relates to a girl at his school named Mei, a shy transfer student who exudes that kind of guileless charm and appeal that is basically exactly his type. He fell pretty hard for her at first glance, and developing a relationship with her and providing a stable, confident, reliable support shoulder for her to lean on. It turns out that Mei is an orphan and has a very dark secret, and dealing with that secret will require Jimmy to grow up and exercise his full wit and character.

Easter Eggs

Persona is BIG on self-referential inclusions, and you get plenty of crossover and references to other games in the series. This is also the case in my game, which assumes that all the main numbered Persona games (1-5) have occurred in the universe of the game, at least in some form.

Those of you familiar with the Persona series may have noted the names of Jimmy’s adoptive parents, Tatsuya Suou and Maya. Tatsuya is the lead character of Persona 2: Innocent Sin, wherein Maya is an important supporting character and potential love interest. Then the dynamic is flipped in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Maya is the main character and Tatsuya a key supporting character. Persona 2 took place nearly twenty years ago by the time of my game, so these characters are in their late 30s/early 40s. Jimmy is not their biological son, obviously, but they play an important role in the story.